Crystalized Munchkinry - Act IV - Chapter 46 (Patreon)

Danny felt horrible upon awakening, and not just because of the hangover. The events of the previous day had scared him something fierce, and Taylor's reaction had frightened him even more.

But he knew that if he started discussing it right then and there, it would only escalate into a shouting match or possibly even something worse.

So instead, he let Taylor go, making only a half-hearted attempt to stop her from going out again, and postponed the discussion until the next day.

Still, with how he was feeling, all he wanted was to curl up and stay in bed. He shook his head, sat up, and listened as Taylor left for her run.

Funnily enough, despite knowing he couldn't really do anything to stop her, he also knew she would honor his ’grounding’. That alone spoke volumes about how much their relationship had improved.

He hauled himself out of bed and began his morning routine, planning to be ready when Taylor came back.

They needed to talk about it. He needed to explain himself, and he wanted to know how she was handling everything.

Taylor returned home, pleasantly exhausted after her run. The events of the previous day had been fun, and the conversation with Tess afterward had been even better.

The news about Coil's situation was good to hear, and she couldn't have been happier that Tess had left them to stew in the darkness.

She had only been locked in the locker for a brief time, but she still occasionally had nightmares about walls closing in around her. She couldn't imagine what Coil and his mercenaries were going through.

Though, she wasn't really feeling sorry for them, because they were horrible human beings.

She opened the door, then hummed to herself as she headed for the bathroom because she stank. Apparently, superhuman bodies didn't come with naturally pleasant-smelling sweat.

Her father was in the kitchen, wearing a ridiculous apron that had been a gift from her mother. The writing on it read: My other ride is a meatloaf. Taylor had never understood the joke, but her mother always laughed whenever she saw it.

"Good morning, Taylor!" her father called out, his voice still subdued. "I'm making pancakes. Do you want bacon with yours?"

"Sure."

"Okay. I will be finished by the time you are done with your shower."

"Thanks, Dad," she answered, wondering whether he was using the food to soften her up for a talk. Because it was totally working. The pancakes smelled heavenly.

She hurried upstairs to the bathroom to begin her shower because she was starving.

She sat back, satisfied, rubbing her stomach after a fulfilling breakfast, her father mimicking her.

"That was awesome, Dad!" she breathed, realizing that her father had cleverly immobilized her. She had nowhere to run.

"Thanks, honey," Danny answered, and she could see in his eyes that she had fallen for his plan. "Let's move to the living room, and then we can talk about yesterday."

Taylor contemplated saying no for a few seconds and simply leaving for her room, but she couldn't do that. He had promised to listen to her and pay attention to her, and he was holding up his end, so she needed to participate.

And why wouldn't she? She wanted to reconnect with her father just as much as he wanted to reconnect with her. So Taylor dragged her pleasantly full body to the living room and threw herself slothfully onto the sofa. Coincidentally, it was the one she had refitted with a massage function.

Danny followed her more sedately, carrying a glass of orange juice for her and a cup of steaming coffee for himself.

She watched as her father torturously slowly arranged himself on the couch, handing her the orange juice in the process. Then he took a big sip from his cup, shook himself as if trying to wake up, took a deep breath, and looked directly into her eyes.

"Taylor, I wanted to apologize," he began. She moved to interrupt, but he held up a hand. "No, let me say what I want to say, then you can take your turn, okay?"

She nodded silently and let him continue.

"So yesterday, things happened," he continued, still looking into her eyes. "Taylor, you cannot imagine what parents... what a father goes through when they see their child in a situation like the one you were in." He closed his eyes for a brief moment, then continued. "I know, I know. You are powerful. But it's quite different hearing it from you and understanding what it actually means. So when I saw you fighting, I was so afraid..."

He shook a little but carried on. "And when you came home with that attitude, I was just so..." He curled his hands into fists, and Taylor could see his fingers turning white.

"Dad…"

"So, I just wanted to say that I'm not angry that you protected your friends, because while the video had no sound, even I could see the guy was up to no good. I'm just angry that you didn't even take it seriously."

"Oh…"

"Hell, I'm even proud of you for doing it. I'm just afraid you don't really understand what it means to have that kind of power."

"Dad, I..." Taylor started, but Danny held up his hand again.

"No, let me finish."

She nodded again and motioned for him to continue. He gave her a small smile, then started talking again.

"So please, for me... for your mother, take this seriously and treat every fight, every situation, as if it could be life or death, and not like you did last night. So many people die because they think they are invincible, and you are a teenager who already thinks they are invincible. Please don't become that kind of person."

By the time Danny finished his speech, tears were falling from his eyes. Taylor said nothing. She just stood up, went over to her dad, and hugged him.

"I'm sorry, Dad," she whispered, horrified. "I never wanted you to think that I didn't take it seriously. Before I joined the fight, I disabled every gun and bomb and made sure I knew where everything was. I was never in any danger."

"That's good to hear, Taylor," Danny said, still hugging her. "But that wasn't really spelled out in the video. And as I said, I don't really know exactly what you can do, and you weren't really volunteering information about this yesterday..."

"I saw you were angry, and I didn't really want to make it worse... I was afraid you would forbid me from going out as a parahuman," she admitted, a little abashed.

"Taylor, I would never forbid that," he said with conviction. "I mean, I freely admit I hate it, but I did some reading, and everything said that the power is part of you. You would never be comfortable staying home. So while I would dearly love for you to decide to stay home and tinker away, I won't stop you as long as you are properly cautious about it."

She hugged him once again and wiped away a stray tear. "Okay," she whispered. "What about the grounding?"

"Well, the city is a little torn up after all those fights, so I would prefer it if you stayed home while they clean up."

"That actually makes sense..." Taylor admitted.

"Thank you for understanding, honey," her father said. "Though in the future, I hope you would be more open about sharing..."

"Sure. How about now?" she asked with a small smirk, looking up from the hug.

"Now? About what?" her father replied, puzzled.

"How about I tell you about the fight?"

"Oh, that sounds cool! Do kids still use cool?"

Amy woke up well-rested but massively confused. The time she had spent with Shaper was calm, no matter how weird it had been, but the moment they joined her sister, that calm went out the window and was replaced by the usual chaos and loudness that her sister was known for.

Only doubled, because of course, Vicky's power was just as loud and peppy as she was.

Everything after that was just a blur of chaos: the pair cheering as she practiced her new supposed power, or booing whenever Shaper insulted her for something.

It was like having a personal cheerleading squad. A pleasant image, but she had never expected to become exhausted in her own dream.

She trudged over to her mirror and looked at herself. At first glance, nothing had changed, so to make sure that what she had seen in her mind was actually real, she activated her power.

Previously, when she did that, information about whatever she was touching with her bare skin appeared in her mind with crystal clarity, and then ideas came flooding in about what she could do with it.

Now it was different.

Life bloomed around her through her senses. She could feel the half-dead plant on her windowsill, the other plants in the house, the garden, the trees, the grass, and everything else around her within a thirty-yard radius.

She could feel life flowing through everything, how everything was connected to everything else. She reached out to her dying plant and drew on her power.

The plant, a simple snake plant, immediately came alive. It straightened, its leaves becoming a healthy green again. And she knew without a doubt that, if she wanted, she could have supercharged the plant, making it grow with wild abandon.

That was one part of her new power confirmed. Area plant manipulation, as Shaper called it.

The next one was the Brute power. She drew on her power again, this time circulating it only inside her body, just as the surly green woman had taught her.

She picked up a metal pencil case, emptied it, then crushed it. It instantly transformed into a tiny, crumpled ball of aluminum.

She let go of the metal ball, allowing it to fall to the ground while staring at her hand in wonder.

So that was also real…

She shook herself, then looked up at the ceiling. One more thing to try.

She crouched down and, after realizing how silly she must have looked, jumped.

An unfamiliar instinct took over, and a second later, she landed on the ceiling, her head pointed toward the ground and her feet somehow stuck to it.

"Huh, so that happened," she exclaimed softly, then grinned.

She had better powers now. She could go out and do much more than just inefficiently heal some people.

She dropped from the ceiling and was about to try some of the lesser powers she had been granted when her door banged open.

There stood Vicky, wearing crumpled pajamas, with unkempt hair but a wide smile on her face.

"Amy!" she exclaimed in what she probably thought was a whisper, but to other people sounded like normal speech. "Did you get the same dream? Because I just had an awesome dream!"

Instead of answering, Amy just smirked at her sister, raised her right hand, and watched as hard wooden bark grew over it in the shape of a large gauntlet.

The next moment, she was enveloped by an excitedly squealing Vicky.

They had a quick breakfast, then retreated to Vicky's room (because it was bigger) to try out their powers.

This consisted of Amy repeatedly hitting Vicky with super strength to see how much her new shield could withstand and how quickly it regenerated. Or Vicky watching as Amy grew an entire wooden clone out of herself. Then she insisted they play a round of cards to see how good the clone was.

That devolved into Amy creating another clone and them trying another board game.

They were interrupted when Carol yelled up for them to come down.

The two sisters walked down to the living room, where they found the entire New Wave sitting there.

Carol was glaring at something only she could see. Mark was sitting next to her, a little more alert than usual, softly smiling at the younger generation, while Sarah and Neil sat next to each other with serious expressions. Their cousins were standing around the room, restlessly looking around.

When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Crystal perked up immediately.

"Vicky! Amy!" she exclaimed, then ran toward them, enveloping both of them in a massive hug. "How are you guys? Did you sleep alright?"

The others greeted them as well, and Amy could see that even her mother's usually severe expression softened a little.

She had talked about it with Vicky and the avatars of their powers: how they should handle their powers changing, and their response had surprised her. She had expected them to want to hide it, but they just shrugged and told them that their boss only wanted to conceal the fact that the sisters could talk to their powers.

Mysterious boss notwithstanding, she liked that attitude.

So, with barely hidden glee, she waited until Crystal stepped away, looked deep into Carol's eyes, and spoke up. "I second triggered," she said in the most nonchalant voice she could manage.

She watched as everybody's eyes opened to their maximum in surprise, but before anyone could question her, she held her arm out and created a wooden clone.

Her family watched open-mouthed as a strange material flowed from her hand, its texture resembling rough bark, then solidified into the exact shape of her body. It was only wooden grain at first, before the clone shifted into a human-looking form, wearing the same clothes she was wearing.

The clone, sporting a smirk, gave a small wave.

Amy savored their expressions when Vicky piped up from behind her"I did too, but I only got better shields..."

The room immediately descended into chaos.

He consolidated the Shards he knew were connected to people in the Bay, making sure that all of them were connected to the new Network. Their upgrades were already in process, they couldn't do anything without his permission, and he was receiving constant updates about their hosts.

Now that he was connected to every Shard in the city, he didn't have to hide nearly as much, so he ran a quick city-wide scan for anyone who was hiding their power.

It came up empty.

It was expected, but he was still a little disappointed. Though, he was also somewhat worried because he hadn't found something he had expected.

Dinah and her Shard, which was nowhere to be found.

He scanned her properly, and the Corona was there, ripe for triggering, but the Shard he expected wasn't connected to it.

While that was not the best news, he wasn't particularly bothered by it. Sure, it could have been useful to access a Shard with that kind of capability, but in the end, he knew that relying on future knowledge was a double-edged sword.

As a consolation prize, he set up the Corona he had created in Dinah and connected it to the Network. If it came to it, he would allow her to ’trigger’ with one of the powers he had access to.

He then turned his attention toward the next event.

The Endbringer attack.